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Re: Poll: 71% shun GOP handling of debt crisis

I love headlines: Yes the GOP did not do well in the poll. But what is telling is what is mentioned in the article: to quote: "Americans are unimpressed with their political leaders' handling of the debt ceiling crisis, with a new CBS News poll showing a majority disapprove of all the involved parties' conduct

What a biased headline. Seems the poll shows all parties need to grow up and get the job done.

Last edited by mike2810; 07-18-11 at 01:53 PM.

"

If we have data, let's look at the data. if all we have is opinions let's go with mine

Re: Poll: 71% shun GOP handling of debt crisis

Originally Posted by pbrauer

There no reason why budget negotiations should be tied to raising of the debt limit. It was done 7 times during Bush's presidency and the debt doubled. Let the Bush tax cuts expire - all of them - and that will go a long way to curing our debt problem.

Congress has raised the debt limit five times since 2001 [through April 29, 2008, the date of the CRS report]:

*June 2002
*May 2003
*November 2004
*March 2006
*September, 2007

It wasn't until right before the Nov. 2004 debt limit increase that Congress began to get alittle fickled about raising the debt limit. Still, each time it was raised with little to no public fanfare. And if you notice per the report, Treasury had to resort to using "fancy accounting" to avoid default atleast twice. So, while the issue of raising the debt limit isn't new, the arguments apparently are (getting louder). This is where Republicans are starting to see some blowback not only from the citizery itself but from its constituency as well. For all their talk of patriotism and sound, fiscal responsibility people are starting to question the sincerety of their words....and deeds.

There are two other readings I've recently stumbled upon I think may be of interest to folks here: A blogpost entitled, "Some Further Thoughts About the Debt Limit" that puts some constitutional (and legal) perspective behind the debt limit debate, and "Understanding the Federal Debt Limit" which goes into great detail on exactly how we've gotten to this point. It should be noted that while the CRS report was compiled by "members and committees of Congress," the "Understanding the Federal Debt Limit" report was compiled by the Concord Coalition, an independent agency.

"Knowledge is power...or at the very least it helps just to be well informed."

Re: Poll: 71% shun GOP handling of debt crisis

"It's discouraging," says John Ross, 71, a moderate Republican from Tavares, Fla., who was contacted for the poll. "The divide has gotten greater between Republicans and Democrats, and the concept of bipartisanship has gone out the window — and the country is suffering."

So what should the two sides do?

Compromise, two-thirds say, even if that means policymakers have to back a plan with provisions they don't like. Just 27% say lawmakers should hold out for the plan they want, even if that means the debt ceiling isn't raised by the Aug. 2 deadline.

Re: Poll: 71% shun GOP handling of debt crisis

Not a unsurprising thing if someone wants to look at this honestly and objectively. Also not as damning as people who are grabbing onto it for partisan spin are trying to make it out to be. Here were the numbers:

Now, on the surface the partisan reading of this seems correct. "OMG! Everyone hates the republicans attempt to stall this thing". However, lets dig deeper and view this a bit objectively across the board.

Republicans by almost a 2 to 1 margin were more unfavorable to their own party then Democrats were, with over half of Republicans being disatisfied while just over 1/4th of Democrats are. This in and of itself largely accounts for the difference between what we see with the Democrat and Republican results. The question that begs to be asked then is, why are the Republicans getting this low number?

If the way some in this thread have immedietely tried to paint the results were true, the reason Republicans are going against their own party is due to the fact that they want taxes raised and are mad the Republicans aren't compromising. However, lets take a more reasoned look around the news. Recently we had posts made of news stories of the Tea Party pushing for the party to "hold strong" and make an "example" out of things using the debt ceiling, not passing it. On the flip side, we have non-tea party Republicans floating various ideas out on how to get it passed, sans tax increases still, due to a feeling that the cieling DOES need to be raised but they want to get something out of it. However there has been little to no evidence that Republicans...either of the Tea Party variety or otherwise...seem to want the Republicans to significantly compromise regarding taxes.

In reality you have a situation where the Republicans are far more fragmented and their own base disastisfied with how they're acting than the Democratic counter parts because half the base doesn't want to hear talk of it being raised at all and the other half doesn't want to hear talk of not raising it...neither of which is really touching upon a notion that they're upset that the Republicans aren't compromising on Taxes. Because there's Republicans that are on both sides of the "raise/don't raise" argument, there's sufficient reasons why both types would be dissatisfied with how their party is doing.

So its far more reasonable, and based in reality, to suggest the Republicans low number comparitive to the others is largely due to the parties own base being upset with what the other half of the party is trying to do with regards to the debt cieling but has little to do with an unwillingness to compromise on tax increases.

Then lets look at the Democrats. 31% of people polled are favorably viewing the Democrats in this, which is not surprisingly, a slight bit lower than the national average in regards to who identifies as Democratic, which is just under 35%. Considering we've not been hearing near as much complaints and splits from Democrats about how congress is working on the deal, and the poll reflects that, its clear that they had a stronger base support for approval than Republicans did. Even more so in the case of Obama where only 22% of Democrats found him unfavorable in this. Considering there is no big split within the Democrat base, you would expect the number to hover around plus or minus 5% or so of what their average total is nationally.

Finally, Obama should be having a higher number than Congress. For the past few years now, historically, the President's been afforded a higher rating than congress. Many political scientists point to the fact that people are at times more defensive of "their guy", making it easier to be negative about Congress as a whole than their specific representitive/senator or the President. Additionally, Obama is acting as mediator, be it truthful or not, in this placing himself somewhere in neutral ground between the congressional Republicans and Democrats. The presentation throughout has been of him attempting to bring things together for a solution. As such, it makes sense for him to have a more favorable outlook from the public than those he's trying to bring together.

Ultimately these numbers don't surprise me and look about right. No majority in the country is truly happy with how things are going. The side whose base is most split amongst itself on the issue is the lowest, the party most cohesive is right around their national average, and the President remains higher than either of the two. There's nothing really earth shattering or truly impactful about the polls results.

Originally Posted by MrWonka

In fact, I would wager to you that within 10 years of today's date that stupid MAGA hat will be registered as a symbol of hate on par with a Swastika.

Re: Poll: 71% shun GOP handling of debt crisis

Originally Posted by Zyphlin

Not a unsurprising thing if someone wants to look at this honestly and objectively. Also not as damning as people who are grabbing onto it for partisan spin are trying to make it out to be. Here were the numbers:

Now, on the surface the partisan reading of this seems correct. "OMG! Everyone hates the republicans attempt to stall this thing". However, lets dig deeper and view this a bit objectively across the board.

Republicans by almost a 2 to 1 margin were more unfavorable to their own party then Democrats were, with over half of Republicans being disatisfied while just over 1/4th of Democrats are. This in and of itself largely accounts for the difference between what we see with the Democrat and Republican results. The question that begs to be asked then is, why are the Republicans getting this low number?

If the way some in this thread have immedietely tried to paint the results were true, the reason Republicans are going against their own party is due to the fact that they want taxes raised and are mad the Republicans aren't compromising. However, lets take a more reasoned look around the news. Recently we had posts made of news stories of the Tea Party pushing for the party to "hold strong" and make an "example" out of things using the debt ceiling, not passing it. On the flip side, we have non-tea party Republicans floating various ideas out on how to get it passed, sans tax increases still, due to a feeling that the cieling DOES need to be raised but they want to get something out of it. However there has been little to no evidence that Republicans...either of the Tea Party variety or otherwise...seem to want the Republicans to significantly compromise regarding taxes.

In reality you have a situation where the Republicans are far more fragmented and their own base disastisfied with how they're acting than the Democratic counter parts because half the base doesn't want to hear talk of it being raised at all and the other half doesn't want to hear talk of not raising it...neither of which is really touching upon a notion that they're upset that the Republicans aren't compromising on Taxes. Because there's Republicans that are on both sides of the "raise/don't raise" argument, there's sufficient reasons why both types would be dissatisfied with how their party is doing.

So its far more reasonable, and based in reality, to suggest the Republicans low number comparitive to the others is largely due to the parties own base being upset with what the other half of the party is trying to do with regards to the debt cieling but has little to do with an unwillingness to compromise on tax increases.

Then lets look at the Democrats. 31% of people polled are favorably viewing the Democrats in this, which is not surprisingly, a slight bit lower than the national average in regards to who identifies as Democratic, which is just under 35%. Considering we've not been hearing near as much complaints and splits from Democrats about how congress is working on the deal, and the poll reflects that, its clear that they had a stronger base support for approval than Republicans did. Even more so in the case of Obama where only 22% of Democrats found him unfavorable in this. Considering there is no big split within the Democrat base, you would expect the number to hover around plus or minus 5% or so of what their average total is nationally.

Finally, Obama should be having a higher number than Congress. For the past few years now, historically, the President's been afforded a higher rating than congress. Many political scientists point to the fact that people are at times more defensive of "their guy", making it easier to be negative about Congress as a whole than their specific representitive/senator or the President. Additionally, Obama is acting as mediator, be it truthful or not, in this placing himself somewhere in neutral ground between the congressional Republicans and Democrats. The presentation throughout has been of him attempting to bring things together for a solution. As such, it makes sense for him to have a more favorable outlook from the public than those he's trying to bring together.

Ultimately these numbers don't surprise me and look about right. No majority in the country is truly happy with how things are going. The side whose base is most split amongst itself on the issue is the lowest, the party most cohesive is right around their national average, and the President remains higher than either of the two. There's nothing really earth shattering or truly impactful about the polls results.

That is a fair assessment. Although I have been hard on the GOP over this, it does not mitigate the fact that Obama is not leading. So I say to Congress, do your damn job, and I say to Obama, do your damn job too. You are not leading, and that is what you were elected to do.

Re: Poll: 71% shun GOP handling of debt crisis

I would like to add to my post #16 above:

EDIT: I would like to add one thing to this debt/deficit issue, something I believe most Conservatives have wrong. The common Conservative refrain has been, "We don't have a revenue problem; we have a spending problem." Well, that is true assuming you're only looking at outlays (spending) side of the ledger and not taking into account a) the inlays (revenue, specifically income taxes) collected in the years since 2003, and b) exactly what has prompted all the spending since that time. As to revenue generation other than taxation, if you consider how (Treasury) bonds work within the Treasury itself, you realize they are a "financial bridge" of sorts between income tax revenues (or the lack thereof) and spending. The Treasury has little of either to meet all of its debt obligations. Moreover, eventually those T-Bills that are part of the public debt will come due. And then what? Without the added tax revenue to make up the slack, our nation's economy could be right back to this point again in the near-term. This is why I believe Pres. Obama's proposal on long-term deficit reduction (that $4 trillion in spending cuts) along with "revenue raisers" - eliminating tax loopholes - was the best compromise Congress could hope to get over the next 10 years or so. Unfortunately, party politics may just well kill that idea. And it's a shame because in the end, American taxpayers could wind up on the losing side of Congress' fiscal lack of accountability and fiscal conservatism....again.

Re: Poll: 71% shun GOP handling of debt crisis

Originally Posted by danarhea

That is a fair assessment. Although I have been hard on the GOP over this, it does not mitigate the fact that Obama is not leading. So I say to Congress, do your damn job, and I say to Obama, do your damn job too. You are not leading, and that is what you were elected to do.